Her eyes widened, and she made a clean sweep for the gold chain around my neck with one hand, jolting me forward. “You probably know this, but just to be clear; I hate you.”
My nails dug into her flesh, holding her hand in place. I prayed for the crucifix to burn her hand, but no such luck. “You’ve got spunk; I’ll give you that. But FYI, I don’t care if you do hate me. Look around. Does this look like middle school to you? Do you see braces and pimples on my face? There’s much more at stake here than winning a catfight.” I leaned forward. “I’m your worst enemy, sister. I’ve already risked everything, so I’ve got nothing to lose. This is my destiny, and I’ll be the one telling
you
how it’s gonna go down.”
She let go of my chain and shoved my hand away, visibly shaken now. “Geez, someone forgot to take their happy pills this morning.”
Her words were hard and cold. My expression must’ve given away some pain at the mention of pills, because it seemed to give her the strength to continue, a twisted half smile on her face.
“Although, I can’t say I’d be a ball of sunshine if I had to look in the mirror every morning and see that big frizzy hair, those ugly freckles, and now a broken nose.”
“Wh—”
Julia drew back her right hand and drove her fist into my face, knocking the breath out of me. I flew backward from the force of her punch and hit my head. Stars swam in my vision for a second before darkness enveloped me.
When I came to on the floor, I saw stars again and Conner hovering over me. “What happened?”
He met my gaze, but his voice was oddly flat when he answered. “My actions knocked you unconscious for a second time. First the boat, now this. I’m sorry I can’t seem to protect you, Olga.”
Running a hand over my face, I inspected for injuries. There didn’t seem to be any blood, and I felt fine, just a little dizzy. I jumped up and lunged for Julia. “You little bi—”
“Olga, stop.” The words struggled through Conner’s vocal cords as he yanked me backward against him. “Julia’s right.”
For one horrible lucid second, my mind flashed back to the last thing she said and thought he agreed with her about me being ugly.
“She already knows too much. Without her help, we can’t finish this. And if you don’t make it back in a few hours, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Maybe we only have twenty-four hours now, but we’ll both make it to Heaven someday, and then we’ll have an eternity. It’s all about perspective. You’ve got to see the big picture.”
A look of dark glee spread across Julia’s face.
“What?” I practically hissed. I took his hand and pulled him a safe distance away from Julia and Bo. “I know we’re all freaked out right now, but I thought we agreed we’re staying together from now on,” I whispered into his ear.
“We will. I’m just buying us some time.” His hot breath seared across my cheek. “But there is something I need to ask you about. When you were out of it for a minute, you kept mumbling something about ‘Don’t tell Conner the truth, the pills.’ And some other stuff about suicide. What was that all about?”
I couldn’t look him in the eyes, but I knew I needed to come clean now. I sighed. “Okay, the truth is, I felt so guilty over your accident that it killed me.”
The word “killed” came out broken, tasting of guilt and loss.
“What do you mean guilt killed you? Didn’t you die from hypothermia and your head injury?”
How could I answer that question? My voice seemed to have fled; I said nothing. I had hoped to spare him from the truth–or spare myself from his reaction to it. Now I watched the color drain from his face, as realization dawned on him.
“That’s how you’re here, isn’t it? You weren’t sent to Limbo to deal with… me?” He took a step back, shaking his head. “What did you do?”
I reached out my hand to him, and he grasped my fingers automatically, but with no feeling behind the gesture. “Conner—I felt so incredibly guilty for not being able to save you. After your funeral, I went back to school. There was this memorial at your locker with notes overflowing out of the tiny slots. When I got to my locker, there were notes in mine, too. I couldn’t even stay until second period. I called my dad to pick me up, and while home by myself, I made the mistake of reading the letters. They were hate letters, blaming me for your death, confirming my suspicions about everyone’s true feelings about the accident. Guilt already plagued my heart. Then I read your obituary online and listened to your song,
Haunted
. Everything just felt like too much to handle. I was tired of the hurt, tired of not knowing why I survived when you didn’t. I had a bottle of pain pills from the hospital that I hadn’t touched yet.”
His hand trembled in mine. “No, no, no. I don’t want to hear anymore. If you don’t say it, then, then…”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His face crumpled. “You’re sorry for killing yourself?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t mean to commit suicide. I swallowed the bottle of pills without thinking. I just wanted to numb the pain.”
He turned away from me and paced the floor, all the while muttering, “This is crazy,” to himself over and over again.
I slowly stood up and watched him for a few minutes, then I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I’m so sorry,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.
His gaze intensified, like he was jerking himself out of a trance. “Okay, okay. So you didn’t die from hypothermia, and you thought they just pumped your stomach and you were okay. Then…”
Sometimes, when we were in middle school, we’d play Manhunt at night. While trying to find the hunted, Conner and I would set up squad teams to search the perimeter, each of us stationed in a tree, him in the front yard and me in his backyard. We’d call out updates to each other and his voice always seemed farther away than a few hundred feet, like it was coming from a faraway mountain somewhere. That’s how he sounded now, and this was one update I didn’t want to give. But I owed him closure. I only hoped it wasn’t ‘game over’ after I explained everything.
“Then I unknowingly entered Limbo. That’s when I started seeing Dr. Judy for counseling. I spent the last year thinking I was still alive, and I met Nate. He saved me when I couldn’t save myself.” I’d told Conner about Limbo when I first got here, but I could tell he needed to hear the explanation again. Limbo was a lot to take in. “And I’m sorry for the pain I’m causing you now, but I don’t regret my actions as much as you might think. Ultimately, everything led me back to you. I don’t regret that, not even for a second.”
“Limbo,” he repeated. He looked like he was trying to hold back tears. “Then maybe
this
isn’t real.
This
isn’t happening right now. You’re really still alive and one of those angels is testing me, seeing if I’m ready to move onto Heaven or something. I mean, that has to be it, that—”
“Hey!” I stumbled forward and grabbed onto him frantically. “I wish that were the case. I wish I could take away the pain you’re feeling right now. But listen to me, you know what I wouldn’t take back? I wouldn’t take back the only thing keeping me going these past few weeks since I found out the truth. And that’s finding you. In fact, I’d die a thousand times over just to find you again.”
He gaped at me for a long moment, then finally dropped to his knees and wept.
What had I done? I came here to save him, but instead of saving him, I only succeeded in imparting more hurt. Hell spared him only for me to bring its fury straight to his heart.
I kneeled down in front of him, tears gathering in my eyes. I wanted to collapse, but I couldn’t. Right now, I needed to focus on getting out the words. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated again and again. “I was hurting. I didn’t save you. I didn’t get the chance to tell you I loved you. In a twisted way, maybe this is how things were supposed to turn out. Maybe—”
“Shut up, Olga! Just shut up!” He bared his teeth like an animal, his nostrils flaring. “This isn’t how things were supposed to turn out! Quit trying to make your suicide an act of fate instead of calling it what it is, an act of cowardice.”
Anger bubbled inside me.
How could he say that?
“You’re calling me a coward?”
He drew back, his gaze looking me over in disgust. “Yep. You’re a coward. I just didn’t realize before. You’re not the best friend I used to know. You’re just her shadow. An empty, hollow shadow.”
There was always that one thing. A particular action you couldn’t ever forgive. I knew for Conner, the thing was suicide. He’d lost one of his good friends to a bottle of pills in middle school, and he always talked about how stupid it was to take your own life. Now I had taken mine, and he was too angry to hear my excuses. Once again, I yearned for a cosmic do-over, the chance to do everything again differently.
He looked up, his face streaked with tears, the perfect wisps of blond hair framing his features, making him look like an angel. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I felt so useless. I wanted to punch Julia, kick the wall, something. None of this was fair. Mom’s voice popped in my head, reminding me:
Life isn’t fair. Put your big girl panties on and deal with it.
“Conner,” I said, shuffling toward him.
He backed away from me again. “Did I stutter?” It hurt how he quoted Julia to me. “I said,
shut up
!”
A sinking feeling of terror rooted my feet to the floor. “Let me explain some more, please. If you could understand the guilt I suffered. Please try to see things from my perspective. After I got you out of the water, I didn’t realize you weren’t breathing at first, but you had this pulse, and—”
“I don’t care,” he said. His complexion drained of all color, and he spoke without any emotion now. “I don’t want to know. I don’t care about the details, your excuses. What you did… I can’t even look at you right now. And I don’t know if I can ever look at you the same again. The damage you’ve done.”
“The damage I’ve done?” I snapped at him, suddenly furious. “Yeah, you know what? You have no right to judge me! I said I was sorry. And really, what am I apologizing for anyway? For loving you too much? You have no idea what I went through! You can call me a coward if you want, but I remember the day you died, even if you don’t. I remember it like it was yesterday! I’d never been more scared than when that lightning struck you. But I jumped in the water to save you. Then I jumped again at the chance to save you here, even if it meant making deals with demons. So I don’t know why you’re acting like I’m the one who betrayed you.”
“I know
exactly
what you went through!” he shouted back. “You don’t think I’ve been going crazy for the past year? But I died of a freak accident, not by choice! How dare you take your own life after all our friends and family were already dealing with my death? You stupid, selfish, self-entitled brat! I’ve been your best friend since kindergarten, and suddenly, I feel like I don’t know you at all and I—”
“Don’t
want
to know me? Is that right?” I spat the words at him. “Well, that’d be the second time I’ve heard that in the past twenty-four hours from a boy who I thought loved me. But I guess your love and Nate’s love are more conditional than you both claimed.”
His expression looked naked and horrified. “How can you even speak of love right now? I don’t think you love me at all, and if you think you do, then you don’t know what love is. You lied to me this whole time you’ve been back about how you’re here. You haven’t been true to me or yourself. I can’t even believe a single thing you’ve said to me in the past few hours.”
I reached out and held his hand, trying to implore him to see reason. “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
At that, Conner jerked his hand out of my grasp. “The girl I loved wouldn’t see the distinction. A half-truth is a lie in disguise. The sin of omission.”
Sniffling, I noticed he already used the past tense of love. “Fine. But does that give you the right to just turn your back on me so quickly, after twelve years? It’s not like I’ve been much of a liar during the course of our friendship. I think you owe me another chance to make things right at least.”
“I just need some time away from you to think, to figure out how I feel.”
Scrubbing a hand over my face until my skin felt raw, I said, “Conner, you could potentially have all the time in the world. I have to go back and deliver the file, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to come here again. I can ask Riel for a transfer, and he might give it to me. But if that’s something you want, I need to know before I leave.” I didn’t want to think about never seeing him again.
Tears touched his cheeks. “If I go by how I feel now, then I don’t want you to come back. Maybe forever isn’t in the cards for us. This just doesn’t feel right.”
Looking at him, I didn’t see love anymore, only anger. “Fine, I get it. I’ll go.” I turned to retrieve my things.
“Olga…
“Yes?” I asked.
For a moment, I thought he’d take back what he just said and tell me he loved me again. Instead, he grabbed a hold of my hands in his and said, “Be safe. I’ll always be here if you ever truly need me.”
Then he walked out the door, taking his hurt and Julia with him. But of course Julia couldn’t leave without some parting words of wisdom.
“Don’t worry, Olga. I’m sure Hell has a nice padded room for you. I’ll warn the devil not to give you any pills.” She gave me a look of absolute hatred.
I probably should’ve let bygones be bygones, but I said, “Touché.”
That one little word seemed to shut her up for some reason. She went out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Pride comes before a fall.
The Bible verse echoed in my mind. The truth was my own stubborn pride kept me from opening up my heart to Conner. First, worrying I’d make a fool of myself if I told him I loved him all those years. And now, worried I’d ruin his perfect image of me if I told him about the suicide. I used to be happy and smiling, but now I felt like I’d lost everything.
I turned to Bo. “I suppose you’re gonna leave me now, too?” My voice came out a half whisper, already hoarse from the screaming of the past few minutes.